Crown Commercial Service (CCS) technology experts discuss how public sector customers can overcome some of the challenges associated with legacy ICT and outline a better way forward towards digital transformation
What is the government’s Cloud First policy?
The government’s Cloud First Policy and desire for digital transformation to improve outcomes have produced demonstrable benefits across the public sector. In the government roadmap for digital and data, mission 4 lays out how departments will modernise across the public sector, moving away from legacy ICT systems, and making sure all major systems operate in appropriate environments which are safe and secure. Additionally, mission 6 seeks to improve digital skills across government, which includes understanding and skills in cloud.
What is legacy infrastructure or legacy ICT?
Legacy infrastructure means the information and communications technology (ICT) devices or applications that are old and out of support. It can also refer to hardware and operating system architectures that are not typically offered by mainstream public cloud vendors.
How is cloud better than legacy ICT systems?
Adopting the public cloud is key because it offers tools, features and ways of working that maximise organisational adaptability and scalability. It is a great way to improve operating models and workforce skills. It provides:
• Increased security and resilience.
• Improved carbon net zero outcomes.
• Improved value for money and scalability.
One example of the benefits of public cloud is that the vendor’s underlying ICT is located in large hyperscale data centres. These buildings are extremely efficient, which lowers the cost and reduces carbon.
This has led to increased cloud spend. The cloud spend for organisations of all sizes is growing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 17% per annum, compared to 7% on legacy (Gartner, 2022).
Balancing cost & performance
Picking the right migration strategy is key to getting the best value for money out of the cloud. It’s important to balance performance with cost to make the right choice for your organisation.
At CCS, we know the balance is difficult. For some services, the choice of public cloud is obvious. For example, for some organisations, migration may be easy and once complete, will lower operating costs.
For others, migration may be time-consuming, expensive and potentially increase operating costs.
To manage this transition effectively, most IT leaders in the public sector are leaning towards a hybrid strategy. This enables them to benefit from the best of traditional ICT, private cloud and community cloud alongside public cloud.
As part of the government’s review of its Cloud First Policy, the Central Digital and Data Office is further developing the advice and support they provide to promote smaller-scale changes, cloud adoption and to move to more cloud-like automation, including private cloud examples and the move to platform as a service (PaaS) and infrastructure as a service (IaaS), all of which will help you move away from legacy ICT.
Crown Hosting – an alternative to public cloud
For those ICT services that are not yet ready to be migrated to public cloud, our Crown Hosting agreement is an option. Crown Hosting uses the same campus-based hyperscale data centre technology as the public cloud vendors, and shares the same sites. It provides you with a low cost and minimal carbon footprint for traditional ICT, private cloud and community cloud.
The commercial benefits of Crown Hosting fall into two categories, direct and indirect. Directly, customers that relocate to Crown Hosting, with no ICT changes, will reduce their electricity consumption and their bill by 75% on average. Crown Hosting also offers better pricing of the services when compared against other equivalent providers in the UK market. Indirectly, Crown Hosting can help you make further savings.
These sites are home to a large community of public sector organisations, all of which need network connectivity, ICT service provision and related products and services. This large community generates demand, leading to opportunities for further savings through competition.
As organisations continue to develop transformation strategies, the Crown Hosting hybrid environment provides a technological solution for cost savings and advancing carbon reductions.
Next steps & how we can help you
Our dedicated commercial specialists have deep category knowledge and can help you to understand your organisation’s requirements. They can advise on strategy, fulfilment and best practice to support your commercial strategy.
To find out more about how we can help you start or progress on your migration journey, get in touch:
- Complete our online form with details of your requirement.
- Explore our Digital Future solutions webpage.
- Take a look at our agreements: Crown Hosting, G Cloud and Cloud Compute.
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Crown Commercial Service (CCS)
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